How can new Engineering Managers build adaptability?

2 Develop a learning plan

A learning plan is an essential tool for helping you identify your learning goals, the resources and activities that will help you achieve them, and the measures and indicators that will help you track your progress and evaluate your outcomes. It can also help you build adaptability by prioritizing your learning needs, focusing your efforts, and assessing your results. To develop a learning plan, conduct a self-assessment of your current skills, knowledge, and gaps; define objectives based on your role, responsibilities, and career aspirations; select resources and activities that suit your learning style and preferences; establish a timeline and schedule for your learning activities; and review and reflect on your learning outcomes. Documenting your achievements, challenges, and learnings is also important.

3 Foster a supportive culture

Fostering a supportive culture is essential to build adaptability and create a safe and positive environment. To achieve this, you should focus on building trust and rapport with your team members, promoting a culture of learning, celebrating diversity and inclusion, encouraging innovation and experimentation, as well as seeking and offering support. Moreover, it is important to recognize and appreciate the efforts and contributions of your team members. This will help cope with stress, uncertainty, and change by providing resources, guidance, and support.

5 Learn from your experience

Your experience is a valuable source of learning and improvement. To take advantage of this, you should reflect on your actions, outcomes, and feedback, and identify the key learnings, insights, and actions that you can apply to future situations. Learning from your experience can help you build adaptability by enhancing your self-awareness, critical thinking skills, and continuous improvement. To do this, review your experience to describe what happened, what you did, and what feedback you received. Then, reflect on what worked well, what didn't work well, and why, as well as how you felt and reacted. Afterwards, extract the main lessons, insights, and recommendations that you can use to improve your performance and results. Finally, plan how you will implement your recommendations in similar or different situations. This way you can expect to achieve desired outcomes.